Personal Profile

Representative Dan Branch is a corporate lawyer first elected to represent HD-108 in 2002. He represents parts of Dallas, the Town of Highland Park and the City of University Park.

Branch is chairman of the Higher Education Committee, serves on the Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence Committee and is a member of the Legislative Budget Board. He is also the Republican Chair of the Dallas Area Legislative Delegation. Last session, he served as chairman of the House Select Committee on Higher & Public Education Finance.

In 2009 Branch sponsored legislation to invest more money in creating additional Tier One universities. He also helped pass controversial legislation to limit the Top Ten Percent college admissions rule and a bill to expand the use of interactive content and digital textbooks in public schools.

In recognition of his work, both Capitol Inside and Texas Monthly named Branch among their best legislators of the 2009 Session. In addition, he was named to The Dallas Morning News Legislative Leader Board. Some of his past public service awards include: the Texas Medical Association Medical Student Division's "2007 Legislator of the Year," the United States Humane Society's "Humane State Legislator Award" and, over the years, multiple "Champion of Free Enterprise" awards from the Texas Association of Business.

In addition to his work as a corporate lawyer, Branch is also a shareholder of Winstead PC. He is a former judicial clerk to Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Jack Pope and a former aide to the late U.S. Senator John Tower. Branch is a member of the bars of Texas, New York and the District of Columbia.

He is also the chairman of SMU's John Tower Center for Political Studies, and serves on numerous boards, including The Fund for American Studies in Washington, D.C., the Boy Scouts of America-Circle Ten Council and the Southwestern Medical Foundation in Dallas.

A graduate of the SMU School of Law and the Institute on Comparative Political & Economic Systems at Georgetown University, he holds two undergraduate degrees from Oklahoma Christian University, graduating summa cum laude in 1980..

Dan and his wife, Stacey, live in Dallas along with their five children.